Poetry show helps keep Etheridge Knight's voice alive

Of the relatively major poets who were born or lived in the Worcester area, Etheridge Knight gets little local attention. Knight only lived here intermittently in the '80s, unlike natives Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz and Charles Olson, who pretty much all moved away when they reached adulthood. And perhaps, in some ways, he's a problematic writer to celebrate, suffering as he did from drug and alcohol addiction.

But Robert Blackwell Gibbs of Worcester rose to the challenge Sunday, reading a full set of Knight's work as part of the Hangover Hour Poetry Salon series at Nick's Bar and Restaurant, and in doing so revealed a body of poems that were brisk, vibrant and crackling with emotion and as relevant now as they were in the '70s.

Gibbs began his set with Knight's "The Idea of Ancestry," where the author feels the weight of family bearing down on him. "They stare/across the space at me sprawling on my bunk," writes Knight, "I know/their dark eyes, they know mine."

Knight stares down the perceived disappointment of ancestry in that poem and juxtaposes it against his own disintegrating family, relatives shifting awkwardly around the subject of an uncle long disappeared.

"My father's mother," writes Knight, "who is 93/and who keeps the Family Bible with everybody's birth dates/(and death dates) in it, always mentions him. There is/no place in her Bible for 'whereabouts unknown.'"

But Sunday's reading was far from an academic exercise, and Gibbs — a black poet who is active in the Main South area of Worcester and a veteran of the Worcester national Poetry Slam Team — discussed how he was drawn to how "street" Knight's poems were. And in Gibbs' capable hands, these decades-old poems sounded like they were ripped from some bright, talented contemporary inner city poet.

The reading was powerful, and seemed to move at a brisk clip, with very little patter from Gibbs. In some ways, Gibbs was more of an amplifier than an interpreter, giving the poems the volume and space to speak for themselves.

This is a testament to both Knight's writing and Gibbs' skill as a performer, and also a little tragic, as the issues of race and poverty that permeate Knight's poems are still instantly recognizable.

In addition to "Ancestry," Gibbs read Knight's poems "The Violent Space (or When Your Sister Sleeps Around For Money)," "As You Leave Me," "He Sees Through Stone," "Vigo County," "A Poem For Me," "Cell Song," "Hard Rock Returns to Prison From the Hospital For the Criminal Insane" and "For Black Poets Who Think of Suicide," the last an exhortation to black poets to not lose themselves to romantic suicides of fuzzy minded snipe hunts down "psychic trails," reminding them that they have a community to serve, a sentiment that seemed to deeply affect Gibbs as he read the poem in his gravelly voice. It was striking how visibly Gibbs opened himself up to the poems, bringing the raw emotion embedded in them to life.

But Gibbs isn't finished paying tribute to departed poets: He's helping organize "Gather Together in My Name: Worcester's Celebration of Dr. Maya Angelou," which will be held July 22 at the Worcester Public Library, 3 Salem St. By the same token, the Hangover Hour isn't done paying tribute to departed Worcester voices: An upcoming reading will feature local poet Mareh Labenski reading the works of a Worcesterite more known for his activism than his writing: Abbie Hoffman.

One imagines that will likewise be an engaging evening, less resurrecting the dead than revealing what, of these great works, is still very much alive. (Victor D. Infante)